Froggie, the Wrath of God?
(Feb. 2, 2005)

      "I don't want to see any religious people in public office because they're working for another boss."---Frank Zappa.

       Calling all Christians!
       No, no---not Armageddonists, fundamentalists, born-agains, "escatalogists," and other such intellectually deficient detainees of ignorance and superstition---I mean Christians. Right. The ones who believe in the spirit of Hay-zoos's teachings, not the literal letter of the humans who wrote the Babble, and later translated it imprecisely into English.
        Yes, I mean all you enlightened, intelligent, deferential, charitable, constructive, open-minded people who go to churches, and reject the "Religious right" out-of-hand. The ones who believe in, well, if not love thy neighbor, at least don't punch him out on Super Sunday. I know you're there. I've even met a few of you, and I've seen some of your websites.
        Help!
        I know you are repulsed by gargoyles like Falwell and Dobson and D. James Kennedy and the millions of glaze-eyed John Tesh-rockin' "Christian right" voters who are convinced that Hay-zoos is coming back soon, perhaps in a new Escalade. Who believe that humans have been divinely commissioned to foul the world and kill the animals, if that's what it takes to establish our dominion here.
        I know you have been shamed into low-profile by these bungbrains. I know they have given modern Christianity a bad name. So. . .
        Do something about it!
        If you don't, the destruction of civilization currently in full swing under the "Christian" right-led Bush administration will go unchecked. I speak of the Babblical "prophecy" that has helped fuel the mad invasion of the Middle East (in order to get that red carpet ready for the Lard and Savoir-faire), and that erases all guilt for destroying oceans, air, forests, fish, birds, large kitty-cats, alligators (well, I wouldn't miss them) elephants, marmosets, and dik-diks.
        If you don't do something about it, nobody else probably can. Non-Christian naysayers are instantly slandered as liberal "Godless" commie baby-killing rat-bastards by the Limbaugh/Fox/televangelist machine. Only a Christian can have any credibility in opposing the "Christian" right.
        Let there be fight!

      Get this: one-third of the American electorate consists of Armageddonists. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress are backed by Armageddonists, AKA doomsday cultists. That's what's going on, you realize---the country is actually in the hands of doomsday cultists. The kind of loonies who used to be lampooned in New Yorker cartoons, dressed in white robes and carrying a "The World is Coming to An End" sign. A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Ameriguns believe this crap. Fifty-nine percent!
        Oh, the White House and those 186 congressmen and women aren't solely Rapture-crazy. There is quite a grab-bag of fiendish design in the Bush/Cheney extreme makeover of the planet, involving greed, arrogance, xenophobia, chauvinism, racism, empire, possibly penis size---but all of these are sort of proud traditions in big white powerful nations, right? Religious fanatacism, though, is new to the mix in a country that was established in large measure to keep religion out of government. You think I exaggerate? You need evidence? I give you. . .
        "President" Bush's coronation speech.
        Well, it wasn't really a speech, it was a declaration of religious world war. If we don't like you, we will conquer you and force-feed you "democracy" because we are God's chosen warriors!
        And the meek shall inherit what?
        First thing to know about this speech is that it was written by an Armageddonist, Michael Gerson (and you thought Bushy-boy scribbled it, eh?) Second, it was riddled with coded messages to other Armaged- donists---slightly rewritten passages from the Babble, uncredited (Holy plagiarism, Batman!) Third, it was not addressed to you or to me. The "president" was speaking directly---and only---to the "we are on a mission from God" True Believer nutball freako scripture-chanting holy rollers. People who see God in a grilled cheese sandwich, or a frying pan.
        The rest of us are all going to roast in The Rapture, see, so why bother even speaking to us? Or more specifically, Bush believes the grim Armageddonist fairy tale that he and all "Godly" people will soon be yanked right out of their cowboy boots and Levis and whisked stark-nekkid up to Hebbin'. And that the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, AA members, PETA, and The Rolling Stones will die fully clothed in a plague of starvation, pestlilence, boils, sores, locusts, and frogs.
        Frogs?
        I mean, folks, the frog part of that little story ought to be enough to make you suspect that maybe these "Christian" folk aren't driving with a full tank of gas. That they are one or two pups shy of a litter. That their beans are not entirely baked. Frogs? Froggies? Run for your lives, they'll hop you to death! What is this, vengence for high school biology dissections? Kermit, the Conqueror! It ain't easy bein' green!
        Hell, you could probably survive The Rapture by eating their legs. Locusts? Roast and dip in chocolate. Crunchy!

Run for your lives!

       So what I'm saying to all of you real Christians out there is. . .get together, will you? This "Christian right" bloc is massive, and it must be concertedly, vehemently opposed. You need to be all over this thing like a plague of frogs! Get um. . .hopping mad! Wouldn't you rise up against any religious group that attempts to take over our country? What in hell, and that expression is sounding far too literal these days, are you waiting for? It's happened.
        Do something. Anything. Support websites that fight this madness. Get on mailing lists. Support organizations like the Interfaith Coalition for the Environment. Demonstrate. Protest.
        If you hear "Christian" right politics spoken in your church---or any politics---voice your objection. And don't be too damn Christian about it! Do it loudly, pointedly, right before your congregation, and follow it up with a letter to your minister/priest/pastor. Do not put money in any collection plate in any church that espouses Armageddonism. If need be, quit your church and find a sane one. And if there is no discussion of the "Christian right" in your church, start one! What better place?
        I made these same suggestions some months ago to a person who claims to be Christian, and who claims to oppose the "Christian" right. I urged her to take any of the above steps in her church, but she was afraid, cowardly. She said it would be "difficult."
        Yes, fighting evil is a difficult thing to do.
        And perhaps never more necessary in human history than it is today.
        But don't take my raving word for it, read Bill Moyers' rational, considered, informed essay, "There is No Tomorrow"---the most important commentary written since Bush was "elected" in 2000. Moyers, who is an ordained Baptist minister with a degree in theology, is downright rattled:
        ". . .Millions of Christian fundamentalists," he writes, "may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse. . . Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that - it's just that I read the news and connect the dots."
        When someone like Moyers is nervous, when his optimism is shaken, it's an emergency. When someone like the wise and heroic investigative reporter Seymour Hersh---probably the most trusted and informed reporter of the last 40 years---says the country has been taken over by "cultists," it's an emergency. 
        Think about that a second. The so-called president is the head of a cult. What else can you call a man who actually believes that frogs and locusts are coming, and that he has been asked by God to help set up Jesus Christ's return by invading the Middle East?
        If that doesn't fill you with tribulation, nothing will.

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